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Rio lifts his own gun at the same time.
The first bullets tear through her chest. The second set hits her shoulder and throat. She jerks, coat blooming red, eyes going wide in shock for the first time since I met her. Blood splatters the wall behind her, bright streaks on gray. I don’t stop until my magazine is empty. She spins half a step from the impact and slams into the side of the doorway, slides down, leaves a smear.
She doesn’t even scream.
The sound comes from further back.
One of the pets must have crept closer through the corridor. A cheer rings out behind Sol—sharp, relieved, triumphant. Another joins it, then another, swelling into a scatter of voices that sound more stunned than afraid.
“Back to your rooms!” Sol roars over his shoulder. “Now!”
Footsteps scramble. Doors slam. The echoes of their fear beat around us.
Morales’ assistant appears at the threshold just in time to see her slump to the floor, and he stops dead. His eyes flick from her body to Lana on the bench.
The moment he registers both guns, he freezes. His breath becomes shallow, and his skin drains of color. He doesn’t move except for the tremor running through his body. He lifts his hands, palms exposed, more from shock than intention, every line of him rigid with fear.
“Please,” he babbles. “Please, I didn’t–I only did what she–”
Sol’s gun cracks.
The assistant screams and stumbles as the bullet rips into his shoulder. He crashes against the door frame and slides down, clutching the wound. Blood seeps between his fingers, bright on his white coat.
“I only did what she told me,” he gasps. “She said–she promised–”
I step toward him, my weapon still in hand. It’s empty, but he doesn’t know that.
“The only thing keeping you breathing,” I tell him, “is what you know. So stop wasting air on excuses.”
He swallows hard as his eyes go wide.
“What did she give her?” I ask. “List it. Every dose. Every schedule.”
He nods frantically.
“Sedative base,” he blurts out. “Short-acting, repeat injections every three hours to build tolerance. Stimulant overlay to keep vital signs from dropping too low. Beta-blockers for cardiac control. Microdoses of the experimental compound. She wanted to see how a clean system reacts before she pushes it further.”
“How many microdoses?” I press.
“Four so far,” he says. “One every six hours. She was going to give the fifth in an hour.”
“She mentioned a ‘final dose’,” I say. “What did she mean?”
“The fifth would have been the highest concentration,” he answers. “She said it would trigger a full cascade. She wanted to film it. Monitor everything. Then stabilize. Then debrief.”
“Stabilize how?”
His gaze flickers toward the tray of equipment.
“There,” he says quickly. “Counter-agents. Reversal protocol. We had one for the sedatives, one for the stimulant. For the compound, she had two options, depending on how the subject responded. I know the sequence to administer them.
“Then you fix her,” I say. “Now.”
He hesitates. “I don’t know if–”
Rio pushes the muzzle inside his shoulder wound and he screams so hard he nearly knocks his head against the wall.
“You know enough,” Rio says.
